"Deadlines just aren't real to me until I'm staring one in the face."
You know, I really wanted to avoid going back to this poor excuse for an adaptation. As a massive fan of the books, the movies are just frustrating and painful for me to watch. The Percy Jackson & the Olympians book series is a series of five books written by Rick Riordan focused on Greek myths, who would go on to write its sequel series The Heroes of Olympus which combine Roman myths with Greek myths. Riordan has also written the Egyptian-centered The Kane Chronicles, the Norse-centered Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, and a spin-off series called The Trials of Apollo, focusing on Apollo and some Roman emperors. The books were extremely popular and widely praised, so a film adaptation seemed inevitable. In 2010, 5 years after the book's release in 2005 and 1 year after the final book in the series The Last Olympian was released, an adaptation in the name of Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief came out with Chris Columbus of the first two Harry Potter fame and the sequel Sea of Monsters was released in 2013. Both films are generally pretty poorly received, which is why no more sequels were made. This is unsurprising considering Rick Riordan seems to have had very little input in the final script (and Riordan reported didn't even bother watching the movies), and it makes me happy to see that there will be a Percy Jackson TV series coming to Disney+ and Rick will be heavily involved in it (likely as a Producer).
This time, like with Alice in Wonderland, I won't be doing my usual structure for adaptation reviews, but I will just be talking about the book first, and then the movie, pointing out stuff they changed or added. At the end, I will still do my bit of talking about both of them, and the summative thoughts.
The Novel
I always LOVED Greek Mythology, so loving the books wasn't obviously much of a surprise. One of the reasons I liked Percy Jackson is because of the ingenious world building; gods and monsters moving around to a different center of civilization every now and then, coexisting among us, was such a cool idea. On top of that, Rick is just amazing at writing characters. Every character has their strengths and flaws and they all make mistakes; and the main character Percy acts a lot like a regular teenager and makes a lot of dumb mistakes by not thinking things through properly.
Another cool thing was how well they integrated classic myths into modern society. For example, having Medusa being in charge of making garden statues was a clever way to incorporate her into the modern world; it makes sense that if Medusa wanted to blend in, a garden statue emporium would make perfect sense since it allows her to "make a living" with her powers. Another cool one was the Lotus Eaters in Vegas; the Lotus Eaters are meant to trap you with a great hedonistic lifestyle, and it makes sense for them to be based in Las Vegas (although interestingly these Lotus Eaters don't eat lotuses for some reason).
Another part I liked was how Rick treated the gods. In most modern depiction of Greek myths, Hades (my favourite Greek god) is always treated as the villain or like the Devil in Christianity (because he . If you really look at Greek mythology, Hades is probably the least problematic of the gods. Apart from him kidnapping Persephone (which in some versions is depicted as being consensual on Persephone's part), Hades mostly minds his own business in the Underworld and causes less trouble in comparison to Zeus or Aphrodite. How the film handled him was something I'll address later.
Rick also did a great job incorporating the smaller mythologies and gods as well. He cleverly pointed out how ignored the minor gods were and how tyrannical the gods were my making some of the neglected demigods and minor gods a major threat along with the Titans. In the process, he brought more attention to gods like Hypnos or Janus, who are super cool gods that are almost unfairly ignored by the major gods.
An interesting point I'd like to make about Kronos is how he's referred to as the Titan of Time and it's implied that time "chrono" comes from "Kronos/Chronos". But as a matter of fact, there are multiple sources that place Chronos (who is the personification of Time) and Cronus/Kronos (the Titan of the Harvest and the father to Zeus) as two completely different figures. The similarity between the two names often led to the combination of two being one and the same, which is why Father Time as a figure is often depicted with a harvesting scythe (the symbol of Cronus) and likely why Rick has Kronos as the Titan of Time. I personally like that Rick made Kronos also the Titan of Time because it makes Kronos a bigger threat; let's face it, being able to control time is more dangerous in comparison to harvest.
Overall, Percy Jackson is a book series that can do no wrong for me and Rick Riordan in my opinion has never written a bad book (some of his books are lesser in quality perhaps, but still very good).
Now let's see how Chris Columbus managed to mess this up.
The Film
It just baffled me that the movie was such a horrible adaptation of the book. Chris Columbus is responsible for the first two Home Alone movies, Mrs. Doubtfire, and the first two Harry Potter movies. Not to mention his was producer and/or writer for The Goonies, Night at the Museum, The Help, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban! You would think since he did such a good job at adapting the Harry Potter books (although admittedly the first two Potter books are some of the weaker books in the franchise), he would be able to do just as well with Percy Jackson! But even though the movie he made was halfway decent, as an adaptation it was an absolute train wreck.
First off is the casting. I get that finding good child actors are hard but the characters are meant to be TWELVE. Aging them up for 16 is fine I guess, but then they went and casted a 22 year old to play Annabeth. Logan Lerman does work decently for Percy, and the other actors are reasonably good.
I was also very disappointed at how they made the gods look. In the book, the gods all wear modern clothing to show they've changed with the times. For example, Poseidon wears Hawaiian Shirts and pants and Zeus wears a pinstripe suit. The movie just has them wearing full armour, which is pretty disappointing since the way the gods and monsters shifted with the times was a major draw factor of the books for me.
Another disappointing exclusion was Dionysus, AKA Mr. D. Dionysus is the director of Camp Half-Blood who's been cursed by Zeus to never be able to drink. He was a funny character in the book and they have him played by Stanley Tucci in the sequel movie Sea of Monsters, so no reason for him to NOT be in the movie.
Clarisse the daughter of Ares is also gone. She's actually a super cool character who plays the main "bully role" but truly shows her worth and heroism in the last few books as a powerful ally. Again, she's in the sequel movie, so WHY ISN'T SHE IN THIS ONE???
They made the entire journey a treasure hunt to find these pearls (which you can use to escape the underworld) and each pearl has a "monster guardian" that you have to defeat. Now while this can be a cool premise for some films, by doing this, they're completely misunderstanding the whole point of Greek Mythology. The items you pick up and the monsters you fight are almost never intentional and Rick understood that. All the enemies they fight are ones they happen to come across by accident and having this type of "treasure hunt" style quest where they seek out monsters on purpose doesn't feel like Greek Mythology at all. And I don't even understand why they had to make it like this since the original book had a perfectly good reason for the gang to get the pearls.
They also really play fast and loose with the Mist. In the book, the Mist is just a magical "thing" that changes monstrous things in the eyes of mortals to make it all seem normal. There are some mortals like Percy's mom Sally who can see through the mist, but most mortals can't. The movie doesn't explain the Mist or even mention it, so we're supposed to believe that mortals can just see everything as it is. This brings up the question: How were they supposed to hide the Hydra in the museum? How were they supposed to cover up the lightning fight that damaged a few buildings? How are they supposed to explain away giant Poseidon at the start? This doesn't make any sense! They even make the Mist a thing in the sequel, SO WHY NOT INCLUDE IT IN THIS ONE?
And remember how I praised Rick for not making Kronos essentially the Devil? Well the movie makes Hades appear like the traditional "demon" and makes Underworld = Hell jokes ALL THE TIME (in the book and Greek mythology, the worst parts of Underworld are the Fields of Punishment and Tartarus; the rest are divided up into limbo and the place where heroes go). I also don't understand why Hades was made an antagonist. In the book, Hades is a neutral player who's been tricked into thinking Percy stole his Helm of Darkness and that's all he wants; and once Percy finds the Helm, Hades returns Percy's mother (who was a bargaining chip) graciously as he's an honourable god who keeps his word. Hades had no interest in the lightening bolt and his worst sin is holding Percy's mother hostage (who he promptly releases after he gets the Helm back).
The final fight was also extremely stupid. Luke and Percy fights on top of the Empire State Building and Luke tries to kill Percy with the light bolt. The book has the bolt so powerful that no one dared to take it out of its sheath considering it had the capability of a nuke. The movie has you believe that one whiny son of Hermes can control it enough to battle Percy, which is COMPLETELY IDIOTIC.
And I'm not even done with the final fight. That final fight wasn't in the book at all; in fact, Luke doesn't even get revealed as the villain until Percy returns to Camp. ARES (who's not even in the movie apart from the scene with all the gods) is the "main" antagonist of the first book. Ares was being influenced by Kronos, who convinced him to send Percy to the Underworld with the lightening bolt; if Percy died, Poseidon to wage war on Hades and Zeus would wage war on Hades for the bolt, Ares' reasoning being that war between family was the best kind. The book's big final fight is Percy fighting Ares and winning by using the ocean to his advantage. I was really disappointed that they left Ares out because he was such an interesting character and he was a really cool antagonist. But speaking of antagonists, Ares doesn't even compare to the REAL antagonist...
WHERE WAS KRONOS??? The movie would have you believe that Luke masterminded the whole plan to make gods go to war because he was angry at his father (the reason for his anger at Hermes isn't even in the movie). Kronos is there as a presence from book one. He's plotting from Tartarus and HE'S the one who masterminded the whole plan. The SEQUEL even has Kronos as a villain so I have no idea why he wasn't even mentioned. It makes NO SENSE not to include the big bad of the series in the first movie in any significant way! AT LEAST MENTION HIM IN A THROWAWAY LINE!
I could go on and on about how bad the movie is, but I've already taken too much space to rant about it. So now I'm gonna give my brief personal thoughts about the book and movie separately, and then do a summary thought.
Personal Opinions
The Novel:
The book series is one of my all-time favourites. I love mythologies in general and Rick does a brilliant job of taking the myths, combining them with modern-day, and creating a whole knew story using pre-existing myths as inspirations. All of Rick's books are 100% worth reading over and over again and I would recommend everyone to read it if you have a passing interest in mythology. I love these books, and I love mythology!
The Film:
WHY IS IT SO BAD??? I had such high hopes for Chris Columbus, but then he just ruined it all for me. He took the general outline and crammed it with stuff that doesn't fit Greek mythology or the spirit of the books at all. I will never watch these again and I probably won't even be bothering with the sequel Sea of Monsters. They're decent movies on their own, but they don't work at all as an adaptation of the books or even as one relating to Greek-myths. Please stay away from these as much as you can.
Overall Assessment
All I have to say is thank the GODS that Rick is writing the TV show. They took away creative control from Rick, and they messed up BIG TIME. If you want to watch it, I guess you can, but why do that when you can read the book? If you've read the book and haven't seen it yet, don't bother. It will ruin your childhood. There is a very good reason why no one in the fandom acknowledges the movies. They are THAT BAD.
For my next review, I will be reviewing another "adaptation" based on a childhood book series. And like the series title suggests, the movie's very UNFORTUNATE as in that it's A SERIES of random EVENTS that makes a weak effort to stay faithful to the book. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!
